The Wrecking Ball Named Russ Vought: How One Man Is Taking a Sledgehammer to Democracy

How a Christian Nationalist Turned OMB Into a Weapon Against Democracy

The Wrecking Ball Named Russ Vought: How One Man Is Taking a Sledgehammer to Democracy

How a Christian Nationalist Turned OMB Into a Weapon Against Democracy

The Jack Hopkins Now Newsletter #577: Friday, October 3rd, 2025

The Opening Shot: This Isn’t Bureaucracy-It’s a Demolition Crew

Let’s stop dressing it up in polite language. Russell Vought isn’t “reforming government.” He isn’t “streamlining bureaucracy.” He’s not “making it efficient.”

Russ Vought is the wrecking ball operator.
And right now…he’s sitting in the cab, the diesel engine is rumbling…and he’s swinging that steel ball directly at the walls of American democracy.

If you think this is just “policy wonkery”… wake up. This isn’t policy. This is a planned demolition of the United States government as you know it.

Who the Hell Is Russ Vought…and Why Does He Matter?

You didn’t vote for him. You didn’t even know his name until recently.

But if you’ve felt the ground shaking…the system cracking…and the smell of authoritarian smoke in the air… congratulations: you’ve been living in Russ Vought’s America.

Here’s the quick dirty résumé:

Heritage Action.

He spent years as VP at Heritage Action, perfecting the art of whipping Republicans into submission with scorecards and ideological purity tests.

OMB Director.

Under Trump, he grabbed the wheel of the Office of Management and Budget…the engine room of government. Budgets…regulations…staffing…if the federal government moves, OMB pulls the lever.

Ukraine Aid Freeze.

He orchestrated the hold on aid to Ukraine that GAO ruled illegal. Translation: he doesn’t give a damn about the law when it blocks the agenda.

Schedule F.

He tried to reclassify 88% of OMB staff into at-will employees. The message was clear: loyalty over expertise…ideology over competence.

Now he’s back at OMB in Trump’s second term…with a sharpened axe and a 900-page playbook called Project 2025…and this time…there’s no pretending. The masks are off.

The Theology Driving the Sledgehammer

Russ Vought doesn’t just have a political philosophy. He has a theological mission.

He’s one of the most unapologetic Christian nationalists ever to sit at the controls of government. He’s written about it, preached it, and built a think tank (the Center for Renewing America) to enshrine it.

In his world…America isn’t a pluralist republic. It’s a nation that should be remade in a very specific religious mold. And when government agencies don’t bend to that vision? He doesn’t “debate.” He purges.

That’s why you keep hearing about “Schedule F.” That’s why you keep seeing federal employees painted as villains. Because the mission isn’t to improve government. It’s to decapitate it and replace it with ideological loyalists.

How Vought Learned to Swing the Ball

This didn’t come out of nowhere. His life has been a master class in learning the weak points of American government:

On the Hill:

As policy director for the Republican Study Committee, he learned how Congress works—where to squeeze, when to choke, who caves fastest.

At Heritage:

He learned how to use outside pressure to make inside lawmakers obey. Heritage Action didn’t compromise; it punished.

At OMB:

He learned the kill-switches: apportionment schedules, regulatory review bottlenecks, budget footnotes that can gut entire programs.

Put all that together, and you don’t get a “policy guy.” You get a technocrat demolitionist…the rare kind who knows how to swing the wrecking ball at just the right angle to topple an entire structure.

The Playbook: Project 2025

Heritage’s Project 2025 “Mandate for Leadership” is the thickest damn wrecking manual ever published.

It spells out…agency by agency…how to rip out the wiring…fire the staff…consolidate power in the Oval Office…and bulldoze decades of safeguards.

And Russ Vought? He’s the guy taking it from theory to reality.

In fact, every time you hear about Trump’s “Day One” executive orders… or about loyalty tests for civil servants… or about plans to seize control of “independent” agencies… you’re watching Vought’s fingerprints.

The Ukraine Test: Willing to Break the Law

Remember 2019? Ukraine needed aid to fight Russia. Congress appropriated it. Vought’s OMB froze it.

The Government Accountability Office ruled it illegal.

That wasn’t a slip-up. That was a trial balloon. Could the executive branch simply ignore the law when it didn’t like it? Vought proved the answer was yes.

And guess what? Nothing stopped him. Nobody went to jail. No system punished the overreach.

He learned the lesson: if you’re willing to break the system, the system won’t stop you.

The Personnel Purge: Schedule F

This is the atom bomb of the whole project.

In Trump’s first term, late 2020…Vought moved to reclassify nearly 90% of OMB staff into Schedule F…stripping job protections and turning career experts into disposable at-will employees.

Why? So they could be fired and replaced with MAGA loyalists overnight.

Congress screamed. Watchdogs warned. But the plan was out of the bag.

Now in term two…Vought’s made it clear: Schedule F isn’t just coming back…it’s expanding across the government. State, Justice, Defense, Education…you name it.

This isn’t a civil service. It’s a loyalty service. And once it’s in place…you can bulldoze faster, with no one to resist.

What This Means in Real Life

Let’s strip away the abstraction and spell it out:

The FBI.

Purged and packed with loyalists. Investigations into Trump’s allies vanish. Probes into enemies multiply.

The DOJ.

No longer a justice department…an enforcement arm for the president. Imagine prosecutions ordered like fast-food deliveries.

The Pentagon.

Promotions and assignments filtered by loyalty. Generals who balk at domestic deployments? Fired.

Health & Education.

Regulations shredded. Data suppressed. Ideological curriculum pushed nationwide.

This isn’t exaggeration. It’s the exact blueprint Vought has written, published, and now wields.

Why It’s a Wrecking Ball…Not Just Politics

Some people still think this is “just politics.” It’s not. Here’s the blunt truth:

• It’s not conservative. Conservatives conserve. This is destruction.

• It’s not reform. Reform makes institutions better. This rips them out by the roots.

• It’s not democracy. Democracy requires rules…referees…and limits. Vought’s project eliminates all three.

Call it what it is: authoritarian demolition.

The Psychology of a Demolition Man

What makes Vought so damn dangerous is his mindset.

Most politicians want power for themselves. Vought wants to re-engineer the entire state. He doesn’t care about applause. He cares about total transformation.

And unlike Trump…who rants…distracts…and improvises…Vought is patient… methodical…and ruthless. He’s the quiet man behind the curtain…pulling levers with one hand while writing loyalty oaths with the other.

Think of Trump as the wrecking ball’s logo on the side. But Russ Vought is the man in the cab, swinging it.

Why Time Is Almost Out

The most dangerous part?

He’s not talking about some distant future. He’s doing it now. Today. This week. The purges…the executive orders…the agency rewrites…they’re underway as you read this.

And once it’s cemented…once Schedule F is expanded…once independent agencies are gutted…once loyalists are in place…you can’t vote it away.

Read that again: You. Can’t. Vote. It. Away.

That’s the game. Make democracy un-democratic from the inside…so elections stop mattering.

What You Must Do About It

I’ll be blunt: if you’re waiting for “someone else” to stop Russ Vought, you’re surrendering.

Here’s what real Americans need to do—today:

Call your representatives.

DAILY. Demand hearings. Demand pushback. Demand legislation blocking Schedule- F.

Flood local media.

Write op-eds. Call in to radio. Get the word “Schedule F” into public consciousness.

Support watchdogs and journalists.

The more sunlight…the harder it is to bulldoze in silence.

Organize locally.

Democracy isn’t saved in think tanks…it’s saved in town halls…churches…and neighborhood meetings.

Stay pissed.

Apathy is their secret weapon. Rage…organized…is ours.

Sideshow?

Russell Vought is not a sideshow. He’s not a faceless bureaucrat. He is the wrecking ball operator of American democracy.

He’s been training for this moment his entire life. He’s swung the ball before…testing… learning…pushing limits. And now? Now the gloves are off.

You can call it policy. You can call it Christian nationalism. You can call it “draining the swamp.”

I’ll call it what it is: the decimation of democracy…planned with surgical precision… executed with ruthless efficiency…and disguised as government reform.

And unless ordinary Americans wake the hell up…Russ Vought’s wrecking ball won’t just leave cracks. It’ll leave rubble where a republic used to stand.

BONUS: Schedule F: The Guillotine for Democracy

You’ve probably heard the phrase “Schedule F” tossed around.

I referred to it often in this issue of JHN. Sounds boring, right? Some HR filing system. Some pencil-pusher’s paperwork.

Wrong.

Schedule F is the guillotine.

Here’s what it really means, in plain English:

For over a century…America has had rules to protect government workers from being fired for politics.

The idea was simple: if you’re an engineer at the Army Corps of Engineers…or a scientist at the CDC…or an analyst at the Pentagon…you should keep your job based on skill…not on whether you kissed the president’s ring.

That protection is what kept America’s government from turning into a dictatorship’s yes-man machine.

Russ Vought wants to rip all that out.

Under Schedule F, tens of thousands of career experts…scientists…lawyers…auditors… intelligence analysts…would lose those protections.

They could be fired at will…and replaced overnight with loyalists.

Not loyal to the country. Loyal to the man in the Oval Office.

Imagine this:

• A judge says the president’s order is unconstitutional? Fire the lawyers who agree with the judge.

• A scientist says a drug doesn’t work? Fire them…replace them with someone who’ll nod and smile.

• An FBI agent follows the evidence to a friend of the president? Gone. Replace them with someone who buries the file.

That’s Schedule F.

It’s not about “efficiency.” It’s not about “draining the swamp.” It’s about stripping away neutral referees…so the game is always rigged.

Think about it this way:

• In sports…you trust that referees don’t work for either team.

• In courts…you trust the judge isn’t owned by the prosecutor.

• In medicine…you trust your doctor isn’t being told what diagnosis to give.

Schedule F wipes that trust out of government. Forever.

Russ Vought knows exactly what he’s doing. He’s trying to turn the United States into a loyalty state…where competence doesn’t matter…truth doesn’t matter…and only one thing matters: obedience.

That’s why Schedule F is the most dangerous weapon in his wrecking-ball arsenal.

It’s the legal crowbar that pries open the door to authoritarianism.

And once that door is opened…history says it’s damn near impossible to close.

Stick close by.

I’ll be on top of things…and delivering in-depth assessments and answers to, “What can we do??”

It has NEVER been more important to stay strong, determined, and committed to prevailing as it is right now. Not in our lifetime. Not even close.

👉Upgrade to Paid-Subscriber Now

Back soon.

-Jack

P.S. If you’re serious about stopping what Russ Vought and his wrecking crew are unleashing, the #1 action you can take right now is to upgrade to a paid subscription.

This isn’t about my coffee budget. It’s about fuel.

Fuel that gets this newsletter in front of millions more Americans who need to wake up before it’s too late.

In the last 30 days alone, 3,375,769 people read Jack Hopkins Now. That’s huge…but it’s not enough. We need to hit 7 million eyeballs, fast. Every paid upgrade turns up the algorithm…expands the reach…and shoves this truth right into the bloodstream of the nation.

We are in crunch time. If not now…when? If not you…who?

👉Upgrade to Paid-Subscriber Now

P.S.S. If you think I’m exaggerating, look up “Ukraine aid freeze.” Look up “Project 2025.” Then ask yourself this:

Do you want Russ Vought running your country…or do you want your country to survive?

Because you can’t have both.